Yankees rookies dress up as 'Star Wars' characters

The New York Yankees rookies prepared for the final road trip of the season by dressing up as some of the best-known characters from the "Star Wars" films after Sunday's 5-4 loss to the Oakland A's.

This year's hazing of first year players may be a tongue-in-cheek attempt at humor because the team is universally known as "The Evil Empire."

Last year's rookies had to dress up as pop stars.

There were no booming strains of "The Imperial March" when the players posed for cameras but there was Adam Warren as Hans Solo, David Phelps as Princess Leia, Cody Eppley as Luke Skywalker and Melky Mesa as Darth Vader.  Mesa probably wishes he had that mask and helmet to hide his face after missing third base Saturday but that episode seems like it's in a galaxy far away right now.

New assistant trainer Mark Littlefield and Hiroki Kuroda's translator, Kenji Nimura, dressed up as the smallest Chewbacca and biggest Yoda ever, respectively.

New York is battling Baltimore for the top spot in the AL East, so Yankees fans are hoping the Force, or at least some power in the middle of the lineup, is with them.

Dewayne Wise makes pitching debut after making 'The Catch'

Two New York Yankees pitchers made their major league mound debuts on Friday night and one got rocked pretty bad while the other one was perfect.

During the 14-7 beatdown by the Chicago White Sox at Yankee Stadium, Yankees manager, Joe Girardi, turned a laugher into a chuckle after he brought in outfielder Dewayne Wise to do some ninth-inning mopping up.

Wise added a little levity to a tough loss, retiring the two batters he faced to end the ninth inning after the White Sox had scored four runs to put it out of reach.  Rookie starter Adam Warren was a disaster— after blowing a four run lead in the second inning— during his first major league appearance.

Wise became infamous for making the non-catch the other night against the Cleveland Indians and duping umpire Mike DiMuro into calling Jack Hannahan's foul ball an out when the leftfielder clearly didn't catch the ball.

Do you think the home plate umpire's strike zone got a tiny bit smaller for Wise because of his controversial catch?  If it did, it didn't matter.

Wise came into pitch with one out in the ninth after being given "five or six throws" to warm up by Girardi— who probably ended up with his best pitching decision of the night by bringing in the gimmick pitcher.

The former White Sox player said his only regret was not throwing heat by his old teammate A.J. Pierzynski.

"Out of all the people on that team, I wish it would have been A.J. that I faced ," Wise said.  "I would have loved to try and strike him out."

Wise— a left-handed side-armer who has an 82 mph two-seam fastball— did manage to get out power hitters Paul Konerko and Alex Rios on a fly and ground out, respectively.

"I was very nervous," said Wise.  "I haven't pitched since my sophomore year in high school, so I was nervous, especially when [Rios] came up.

"For some reason I just thought that he was gonna hit the ball back at me. I just tried to not throw too hard, hopefully they'd be out front and get them out."

Girardi's gag move wasn't lost on Wise— the first-year Yankee.

"We got our butts kicked tonight," he said.  "It's just one game.  I came in and everybody kind of laughed about it, so we just gotta move on and get ready for tomorrow.'